By Heather Michon
Correspondent
Sheriff Eric Hess held an informal meeting with Village Oaks residents on Thursday evening (Aug.) to discuss local policing.
One thing to prepare for: much more traffic.
With hundreds of new homes under construction at Colonial Circle at Lake Monticello Road and Rt. 53, “we’re going to have a lot of new neighbors,” he said.
Combined with new business developments under consideration on Lake Monticello Road and Rt. 600 and a nearly year-long construction project to install turn lanes slated for late 2026, Village Oaks residents will see a lot more cars on the road.
All this new growth “definitely will affect us, it’ll affect fire, it’ll affect rescue,” he said.
He and his staff are assessing their staffing needs for the next budget year and beyond. Hess currently has 41 deputies and a total staff of 65.
Captain Aaron Hurd said most of the deputies live in the county, and the department encourages them to take advantage of that when possible, be it by taking an hour to have dinner with their families or putting their kids to bed.
It’s a good quality of life perk in a job that requires many weekend and holiday hours.
But for most of their working hours, “we expect them to be out and about,” said Hurd.
He said the main crimes in Fluvanna County are domestic violence calls, crimes against children, and fraud.
Fraud is “rampant, and it’s easy.”
“If you didn’t enter the contest, you didn’t win a prize,” he said of one of the more common scams in circulation.
Other scams prey on people’s vulnerabilities. Often, it’s a call saying that a grandchild had been arrested in Mexico and needs money to post bond. Or that someone has missed a jury duty notice and now needs to pay a “fine.”
In most cases, these kinds of scams demand payment in the form of gift cards.
“You don’t get out of jail using gift cards,” said Hurd.
While fraud is often seen as predominantly aimed at seniors, in Hurd’s experience, any age group is susceptible to scammers.
People who have been taken advantage of by scammers often don’t report it out of shame. But “they are victims,” said Hurd, and deserve to be treated as such.
If you receive a strange call or email or just have a question about something that feels suspicious, Hess and Hurd both encouraged people to call the non-emergency line at 434-589-8211 and ask one of the deputies for their advice.
“We are not scary to talk to,” said Hurd. “We are not going to arrest you because you didn’t give us an iTunes card. I would much rather spend 20 minutes on a Wednesday afternoon talking to you on the phone about why that’s a scam and why you don’t have to worry about getting arrested for some bogus foolishness.”
